But the hand of a man came over her shoulder,and seized him by the neck.Instantly a girl ran her sharp spear into the fellow's arm.He sent forth a savage howl,and immediately stabbed by two or three more,fled yelling.
"They are just bad giants!"said Lona,her eyes flashing as she drove her horse against one of unusual height who,having stirred up the little manhood in him,stood barring her way with a club.
He dared not abide the shock,but slunk aside,and the next moment went down,struck by several stones.Another huge fellow,avoiding my charger,stepped suddenly,with a speech whose rudeness alone was intelligible,between me and the boy who rode behind me.The boy told him to address the king;the giant struck his little horse on the head with a hammer,and he fell.Before the brute could strike again,however,one of the elephants behind laid him prostrate,and trampled on him so that he did not attempt to get up until hundreds of feet had walked over him,and the army was gone by.
But at sight of the women what a dismay clouded the face of Lona!
Hardly one of them was even pleasant to look upon!Were her darlings to find mothers among such as these?
Hardly had we halted in the central square,when two girls rode up in anxious haste,with the tidings that two of the boys had been hurried away by some women.We turned at once,and then first discovered that the woman we befriended had disappeared with her baby.
But at the same moment we descried a white leopardess come bounding toward us down a narrow lane that led from the square to the palace.
The Little Ones had not forgotten the fight of the two leopardesses in the forest:some of them looked terrified,and their ranks began to waver;but they remembered the order I had just given them,and stood fast.
We stopped to see the result;when suddenly a small boy,called Odu,remarkable for his speed and courage,who had heard me speak of the goodness of the white leopardess,leaped from the back of his bear,which went shambling after him,and ran to meet her.The leopardess,to avoid knocking him down,pulled herself up so suddenly that she went rolling over and over:when she recovered her feet she found the child on her back.Who could doubt the subjugation of a people which saw an urchin of the enemy bestride an animal of which they lived in daily terror?Confident of the effect on the whole army,we rode on.
As we stopped at the house to which our guides led us,we heard a scream;I sprang down,and thundered at the door.My horse came and pushed me away with his nose,turned about,and had begun to batter the door with his heels,when up came little Odu on the leopardess,and at sight of her he stood still,trembling.But she too had heard the cry,and forgetting the child on her back,threw herself at the door;the boy was dashed against it,and fell senseless.Before I could reach him,Lona had him in her arms,and as soon as he came to himself,set him on the back of his bear,which had still followed him.
When the leopardess threw herself the third time against the door,it gave way,and she darted in.We followed,but she had already vanished.We sprang up a stair,and went all over the house,to find no one.Darting down again,we spied a door under the stair,and got into a labyrinth of excavations.We had not gone far,however,when we met the leopardess with the child we sought across her back.
He told us that the woman he took for his mother threw him into a hole,saying she would give him to the leopardess.But the leopardess was a good one,and took him out.
Following in search of the other boy,we got into the next house more easily,but to find,alas,that we were too late:one of the savages had just killed the little captive!It consoled Lona,however,to learn which he was,for she had been expecting him to grow a bad giant,from which worst of fates death had saved him.
The leopardess sprang upon his murderer,took him by the throat,dragged him into the street,and followed Lona with him,like a cat with a great rat in her jaws.
"Let us leave the horrible place,"said Lona;"there are no mothers here!This people is not worth delivering."The leopardess dropped her burden,and charged into the crowd,this way and that,wherever it was thickest.The slaves cried out and ran,tumbling over each other in heaps.
When we got back to the army,we found it as we had left it,standing in order and ready.
But I was far from easy:the princess gave no sign,and what she might be plotting we did not know!Watch and ward must be kept the night through!
The Little Ones were such hardy creatures that they could repose anywhere:we told them to lie down with their animals where they were,and sleep till they were called.In one moment they were down,and in another lapt in the music of their sleep,a sound as of water over grass,or a soft wind among leaves.Their animals slept more lightly,ever on the edge of waking.The bigger boys and girls walked softly hither and thither among the dreaming multitude.All was still;the whole wicked place appeared at rest.